The House of Rhyming Pests

Part 1 – The Walls Are Alive

Literature is full of works that feature a house in the title. Bleak House, Little House on the Prairie, The Fall of the House of Usher – even The House that Jack Built. So, I feel comfortable in presenting my contribution to this literary tradition, my story of The House of Rhyming Pests.

At first, the tale sounds as if it will be about irritating poets gathering under my roof, reciting terrible poetry nonstop at all hours of the day or night. It isn’t (but that does give me an idea for a horror story). The story of my house, and the parade of literature-inspiring critters started ten years ago when I moved into this cozy (translation: tiny), underappreciated (translation: undermaintained), vintage (translation: everything in it is old and not working) house in what my real estate agent described as a transitional neighborhood (translation: as long as I was willing to sit on my front steps with a broom, looking like the Crazy Old Lady, the drug dealers wouldn’t conduct business in my driveway.)

The first pests I encountered may well have considered me the intruder. After all, they had been in possession of the premises for at least the several years the property had been vacant, and possibly for quite some time before. Their presence wasn’t immediately visible as we cleaned and painted and moved in the furniture. I’m guessing that the main part of the house was not interesting to these crawl-space and wall dwellers. Not interesting until I did two things – turned on the heat and put food in the kitchen cabinets.

The first signs were scurrying noises in the kitchen. The dog would start barking, and I would get out of bed, to (as Clement Moore would say) “see what was the matter.” It became evident quickly that this wasn’t Santa or his reindeer, but some kind of vermin who had easy access to the interiors of my cabinets and drawers. We assumed mice. That was until my son discovered a giant hole chewed through the back of his closet, and we captured something very large and angry in a plastic garbage bag that we hustled outside without looking in it.

“Rats,” said the exterminator. “And big ones.” He turned and looked at my pet cockatiel, preening herself in her elevated cage. “They’ll try to get in there and eat that bird,” he said. The war was on.

Thus began the saga that contributed to my house being called “Noreen’s House of Rats.” They were everywhere, in the crawlspace, in the walls, in the closets, in the attic. In the kitchen they had chewed away the wallboard behind the cabinets to a height of about 3 feet. They sent plumbers and carpenters running for cover as I tackled all the mandatory home improvements to the house. We filled gaps in the walls with a combination of steel wool and expanding insulation foam. Eventually, the scurrying noises died down, no more packages of macaroni in the cabinet were ripped open, and the dog and I started sleeping through the night again.

NEXT: PART TWO – Yowls in the Night